Travel & Photography Blog

Kathmandu, March 2013

The captain asks the crew to get ready for landing. I take a peak outside, expecting to see the lights of Kathmandu. But wait, where are those lights? I can see some weak lights beneath us, it looks like a rural area. Well, maybe we’re not flying over Kathmandu yet.

We take our first steps outide the airport gates. Lots of taxi drivers surround us, each and every one of them trying to convince us to take his taxi. But… all the taxis look shady to me – old, tatterred cars, I doubt if they could even start the engine, surely not leave the airport and actually take us somewhere!
I’m trying to convince my friends to go look for a less shady-looking car. Begam looks astonished while he stares at me and exclaims ‘Tom, all the cars here are the same! Look around!’.
Oh.

The way to the Thamel, Kathmandu’s tourist district, is ‘paved’ with poor dirt roads, dark streets and houses that look like they barely survived an earthquake (a gun in the first act?). Me and Shaked are looking at each other, terrified, and then she pulls out of nowhere the appropriate Eurotrip reference – “Lucky we came in summer, in winter it can get really depressing”, and we’re laughing while thinking about the movie’s exaggerated version of Bratislava as a forsaken east-european city. One thing’s for sure – at this point I’ve already figured out why I’d seen so few lights while looking at Kathmandu from a bird’s view.

The taxi drops us off at a dark narrow street. Thamel. Dubious people stroll all around us and we’re walking quickly towards our prebooked guesthouse – Hotel Red Planet. So that’s Nepal? Dark streets, dubious people, unstable buildings, dirt road, no lights and old cars?

We’re sitting in the adjacent pub, watching a live band and eating a pizza. A bunch of Israelis are sitting nearby. They look so relaxed. and me – for me everything around is new, dark and intimidating (back then I haven’t invented the first-night-rule yet). I remember wondering if I’d ever be like those guys.

A few days later, it’s become obvious that Nepal isn’t so intimidating. Kathmandu is a crowded and bustling city, a lump of chaos – The road has no definite directions and no sidewalks. Everyone (cars, motorbikes, rickshaws, bicycles, people and cows) is racing everywhere without order, but somehow there’s harmony in the midst of all the chaos.

The Thamel is lively and vigorous – packed with tourists, and stubborn-and-annoying Nepali merchants, including the dubious kind, like the one that stands in the corner and asks ‘How’s it going? drugs?’ in Hebrew, in a nonchalant manner. There’s also the one that goes way too far – ‘Do you want trekking? Porter? Rafting? Guide? Change money? Drugs? Weed? Hashish? Marijuana? Acid? Nepali Women?’. Lucky for us, we’ve been trying to spend most of our time outside the Thamel. As soon as you step out, Kathmandu becomes a different place altogether – busy with hard-working men, women, children and elderly people, a significant portion of them carrying unbelievable weight on their backs. Women with huge piles of wood on their backs and men with gigantic pipes, or even refrigerators, are a pretty common sight.

The road is narrow, the cars pass me by and honk, because that’s just what they do instead of signaling. More and more people hop on the bus, even when there’s really no place left, but if someone would go on the bus with a baby – it’s not an arguing matter, someone will quickly clear a sit for her. When there’s really no more place to stand, people climb on the bus and sit on the roof. The bus door stays open, and the conductor (usually a kid) peaks outside and yells the stops’ names for the pedestrians’ benefit.
The dogs are always asleep, and the cows look happier, roaming freely in the streets. Oh, and in case a cow decides to fall asleep in the middle of the road – please don’t honk, it disturbs its rest.
Electricity supply is unreliable, and everyone’s already learned to cope without it (or maybe has never learned to fully depend on it). And when the electricty is out, there are two super-important things that will always keep on working – lights and wi-fi.
And the plumbing, oh the plumbing. I’ve already stumbled upon a riddle-shower: one tap, two showerheads, lots of pipes and four switches. After I’ve finished the shower I still couldn’t tell how to turn something on or off, and definitely not control the water temperature.
And the doors! The doors in Nepal aren’t shut – they are either open or locked, since there’s no bolt.
The young children, craving to practice the English they learn in school, love to attack random tourists with rapid questions – What’s your name? What is your country? Do you love Nepal?
Once you’ve answered their questions, the conversation will start over – What’s your name? What is your country? Do you love Nepal?
If the Nepali waiter\shopkeeper hasn’t fully understood what you’d just asked him, he would usually shake his head back and forth (not like we’re used to shake the head for ‘no’, but rather in the ears-shoulders axis), put on a half-miserable face and will answer ‘yes’, even though he has no idea what you’ve just asked him.

On the way back from Durbar Square, the residence of the Nepali royal palace and a bunch of impressive old temples and pagodas, we hire two bicycle rickshaws back to Thamel. The bicycle rickshaws are usually equipped with a horn that makes funny sounds, in order to make the pedestrians give way. Our rickshaw was missing a horn like that, so our friendly driver had to make do with what he’s had at his disposal – his own voice. while we are racing down the narrow street, packed with cars, rickshaws and pedestrians, he bends over so his mouth would pass just next to the unsuspecting pedestrians’ ears, and then shouts loudly, making animal sounds while passing by the poor people, and we’re laughing till we’re crying while watching the pedestrians for surprised and shocked faces and exclamations.

We’re taking a guided tour in the temple-laden streets of the old city of Bhaktapur, Nepal’s former capital city. The streets are garbage and vehicles free and generally a pleasant sight. The entrance fee is quite expensive (for Nepal), and the guide keeps emphasizing for us that the fee we’ve payed is being used for keeping the streets clean and cared for. Once the guided tour is over we keep roaming the town and as soon as we drop off the main streets, the same phenomenon we’ve experienced in Kathmandu repeats itself – a whole different Bhaktapur, a whole different Nepal: the street is not paved, fields pop up among the houses, locals are going to central walls to pump some water, the tiny houses have short doors, and if you’d peak inside, you’d see mainly darkness, poverty and domestic animals. Everything is happening outside – the house dwellers seat in the front entrance while talking with their neighbours, or just staring peacefully. Teeth brushing is done using a street tap, and that’s where handwashing, dishwashing and laundry are done as well. Heck, they even take a shower using that tap (with a sheet\towel wrapped around).

Another stroll in Kathmandu – we’re wandering a bit south of the Thamel and discover a bustling local market: fruits, vegetables, clothes, watches, shoes, nuts and dried fruits. Those last two really peak our interest, since we’ve been planning to buy some for our upcoming trek. We go to one of the stands, pick some bags with dried fruits and ask the lady for the price. When she names a price that fits Israel better than Nepal, Begam doesn’t hesitate for a moment and hands the money over, without trying to haggle at all. Everyone involved is astonished (besides Begam, of course). While the three of us are staring at Begam and our faces are expressing amazement mixed with shock by the fact that he’d agreed to such an outrageous price, the lady responds with her own version of amazement and shock – a really loud and sudden burp.

The last thing I expected to stumble upon in the midst of the Thamel was a big poster with the writing ‘Deep Purple Live in Kathmandu’. And the date? only a few days later. A few inquiries, and we got tickets – the close expensive seats for 20 dollars. It’s very exciting, mainly due to the fact this whole thing (Deep Purple, in Kathmandu, no less) is higly unlikely. Our friends in Swissa agency explained that this is the second time there’s going to be an international concert in Nepal – the former was Brian Adams…
Well, apparentaly it was too good to be true, because eventually the show has been canceled.